Dawn Marsh passes the credit for induction to the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame much like she delivered the basketball.

The former Tennessee Lady Vols point guard will be one of 10 honored Aug. 3 at the Knoxville Convention Center. She and her former teammates also will be recognized for winning the Lady Vols’ first national championship in 1986-87.

“It makes it doubly nice,” Marsh said of the team gathering. “If they weren’t able to catch and shoot, I wouldn’t be getting honored.”

Marsh was a point guard at Alcoa High as well as Tennessee (1984-88). Her collegiate career was built upon a knack for assisting others. She holds UT’s career record for assists (755). Marsh also has the season (243) and single-game records (18). Her per-game assist averages for a season (7.1) and a career (5.7) are records, too.

It’s worth noting that Marsh set the single-game assist record against Georgia in 1988. She recalled former Lady Bulldogs coach Andy Landers, who grew up in Blount County, trying to recruit her away from UT by hinting that she didn’t want to go to a school that was inclined to “massage” the basketball.

“I was a running type of guard, I wanted to fast break,” she said. “In the 1980s, that wasn’t (Tennessee's) style of play. That was (Landers’) way of saying, ‘why massage it, when you can be pushing it for me?’ ”

Marsh said she also was recruited by Old Dominion and Louisiana Tech. Her choices comprised a who’s who of the sport’s super powers in the mid-1980s. She made her decision by asking herself a pointed question.

“Are you going to another school to come back and play Tennessee and listen to Rocky Top in a different uniform?” she recalled.

Marsh said that former Tennessee coach Pat Summitt adapted to Marsh’s style while trying to refine her play. In other words, the coach tried to keep the point guard’s passes from sailing into the stands.

“If your teammate didn’t catch it, the line was drawn,” Marsh said.

One assist Marsh didn’t get resulted in her scoring the first basket at Thompson-Boling Arena in a 1987 game against Stetson.

“We were running Bridgette Gordon off a double screen, but she didn’t shoot it,” Marsh said. “She gave it back to me and I shot it and made the basket.”